


Out of the Blue

by Meltha



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: AU, F/M, Victorian setting, season 5 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meltha/pseuds/Meltha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred is attempting to give Spike a corporeal body in season 5 of Angel, but things go extremely wrong… or is it extremely right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tobywolf13](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tobywolf13).



> Summary: Fred is attempting to give Spike a corporeal body in season 5 of Angel, but things go extremely wrong… or is it extremely right?  
> A  
> uthor's Note: Author’s Note: Written for Eurydice 72’s Williamficathon. The request was from tobywolf13 who requested Fred/William, no more than an R, a comedic/fluffy romance, time travel, Texas barbeque, and horseback riding Western style, with no character death, graphic sex, or slash. The fic sort of ran away from me and wound up being several short sections long.

“You sure about this, Fred?” Spike said, warily eyeing the machine in front of him. He poked a non-corporeal finger at one of its coils, but of course, it had no effect. “I still don’t quite get how this is going to make me solid again.”

“It’s kinda difficult to explain,” Fred said as she carefully checked the settings on a series of dials.

“Mind tryin’? I mean, I trust you. Course I do,” he said, though when Fred’s back was turned he seemed to be contemplating running out of the room. “But you’re planning on using this thingamabob on me, and I don’t fancy it burning a hole through my torso or some such.”

"No torso holes, I promise,” Fred said, giving him a reassuring smile. “Okay, I’ll try to make it simple. See, my theory is that you don’t have a body because your reality matrix has been subordinated due to your contact with the amulet’s supernatural field of containment plus the power surge that occurred when the transdimensional portal in Sunnydale went kerplooey, so this device should reset your solidity quotient back to its original starting point by using traces of molecular particles that are forming your visual manifestation and magnifying them into a three-dimensional recreation of your earlier matrix calibration.”

“The only word I understood in that was ‘kerplooey,’” Spike said, his expression not showing the least bit of comfort. “Try again?”

“Sorry,” Fred apologized. “It’s like this. The amulet and the hellmouth both working together sort of messed with the fabric of reality.”

“Fabric of reality?”

“Yeah,” Fred said. “It’s just a theory, but, see, we perceive reality only because we have the senses to take it in, right?”

“Okay,” Spike agreed, not sure if he was following completely. “Example?”

“You know how people ask if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a noise? Well, of course, somebody would hear it or feel it or sense it, and even then, the tree is or was a living thing, so something would know the tree fell, so, yeah, the tree makes a noise. The only way it wouldn’t was if there was a total void, which theoretically isn’t possible on earth.”

“Uh, Fred? Not a tree,” Spike said.

“Course not, silly,” Fred said, moving to slug his arm playfully but then realizing it was pointless. “But you may have been in a void.”

“Thought you said that wasn’t possible…”

“Theoretically, no, but if a Hellmouth is imploding due to an amulet wiping out every bit of life for a several mile radius, well, I don’t think scientists would have considered that permutation on the theory,” Fred said with a smile. “So, essentially, when you… you know… uh…”

“Died?” Spike piped up. “Bit the big one? Kicked the bucket? Met the Grim Reaper? Shook hands with the great beyond? Went to Davy Jones’ locker? S’okay, pet, you can use the word.”

“Right, well, except you kinda didn’t die because you were already dead and had been for over a hundred years,” Fred said. “Anyway, you were essentially the tree falling in the void. There was no one there to see you fall, so you didn’t, if that makes any sense.”

"I don’t count?” Spike asked.

“I think it has something to do with the amulet. You were within its field of power, and I think that messed up the perception of reality. Added on to that, the Hellmouth essentially blew up, and that created a multi-dimension power surge, so reality kind of ceased to exist around you for a split second, and that must have been just about the time you… died… or re-died. It’s like a little hole in reality. But reality only blipped out of existence for a second or so, and when reality’s fabric wove back together, you wound up in the amulet. Does that make sense?” Fred asked earnestly.

“Little bit,” Spike said. “Right then. So I’m in the amulet, I get let back out, and I have no body but people can see me. Why?”

“See, I’m thinking that reality is still kind of blipping where you’re concerned. You were at the center of the whole thing when reality broke down, so I think a tiny piece of that hole wound up inside the amulet with you, and it’s been effecting how you’re perceived and how you perceive, too.”

“And since perception is reality, ergo, I don’t quite exist?” Spike asked.

“Ergo?” Fred said in amusement. “People actually use that word?”

“Fred, you just used the words ‘matrix calibration’ earlier. I think you win in the word geek competition betwixt the two of us,” he said, letting out a low chuckle.

“Well, anyway, you’re pretty close to right. That void is also why the air around you has been a little warmer than usual. Reality is doing its best to knit back together again, and its creating a kind of low-level friction with its attempts, kind of like how if you want to warm up cold sheets when you hop into bed at night you rub your feet on them,” Fred said. “See, the plus side is reality pretty much wants you solid because nature hates a void.”

“That’s good then,” Spike said. “So how long does old reality have to knit-one-perl-two me back together.”

“Uh… a while,” Fred said, studying her shoes closely. “From the readings I’ve taken, about, oh, three or four… millenia…”

“WHAT?!”

“But this machine should help!” Fred quickly consoled him. “See, you’re not completely not solid. It’s just that the reality hole is making your molecules spread out too much, but since we can see you, there has to be something there. Tree, forest, noise, perception of reality.”

“Fred, people see things all the time that aren’t there,” Spike said rationally. “I lived with a girl for over a hundred years who did exactly that.”

“Okay, so Drusilla was crazy, but she was the only one who saw those things, right?” Fred asked.

“Well, yeah,” Spike said.

“Those are hallucinations. Unless all five hundred employees of Wolfram & Hart you mooned last Tuesday at lunch in the cafeteria were involved in a mass hallucination, it’s not the same thing,” Fred said with a disapproving look.

"That was fun,” Spike said, grinning devilishly.

“Nice butt, by the way,” Fred said, and smiled a bit as she saw him go slightly pink. “Anyway, the deal is, this machine is like a big magnifying glass for reality. I’m going to catch a couple of your molecules in the crosshairs of lightbeams that will come from these six sensors that form a circle around you. Once I do, I’m going to give them a boost, and that should make your molecules kick the void out and squoosh back together again, turning you solid. There are just a couple problems.”

“Aren’t there always. Problem one, Madame Curie?”

“See, we need a bit more reality than a vampire’s body would normally have. Since you’re not quite alive but not quite dead, reality gets sort of messed up in your field anyway. And if we want this to work, we have to grab molecules that are living as closely within reality’s rules as we can, and you haven’t had those molecules since 1879,” Fred said.

“I’m sensing that’s a large problem,” Spike said with a look of annoyance.

“Well, yes and no. See, all we have to do is set your molecules back to 1879.”

“Set my molecules… back to… 1879… Fred, I hate to break this to you, sweetheart, but I’m not a bloody Swiss watch!” Spike yelled.

“No, but you’re close,” Fred said. “See, time doesn’t stop existing once it’s past. That’s how memory works. It calls past events back into existence within the scope of the brain. All I need to do is convince your molecules to remember that time vividly enough and wham, bam, they’ll sort of create a small field of that reality, and since reality is perception…”

“Then if my molecules perceive that it’s 1879, it is 1879,” he said with a grin.

“Or near enough. And this little beauty should do the convincing,” Fred said, lovingly stroking the machine’s metal casing.

“So what’s problem two, then?” Spike asked.

“You know, just forget I mentioned problem two,” Fred said. “It’s just me, worrying about nothing and all like I usually do. The chances are so infinitesimal of it even occurring that it would be about the same likelihood of tap-dancing cheese.”

“I left a wheel of cheddar in the fridge so long once that it practically do the tango. Talk,” Spike said, folding his arms stubbornly.

“Um,” Fred said, not looking him in the eyes, “there’s the smallest chance that the little tiny reality bubble around your molecules that contains 1879 will break and actually create a vortex to 1879.”

“God, I hate science,” Spike said in disgust. “No wonder all those physicists look like they’re bonkers. So what’s the outcome of that little scenario?”

“It wouldn’t kill anybody or anything like that, but it might possibly send something really small back through time, like maybe a paper clip or a pin or something,” Fred said.

“Or a disease microbe that wipes out half of London in the Victorian age and changes human history completely,” Spike said angrily. “Nothing doing.”

“You think I hadn’t thought of that? The lab’s been sterilized, Spike. There’s not so much as a cold germ in here,” she assured him.

“You’re absolutely certain of that? No harm is going to come from this?”

“I give you my word of honor. I can’t promise you this will work, because it is only a theory, but if it doesn’t, there won’t be any harm done,” she vowed. “So, will you do it?

Spike paced back and forth for a minute, the tails of his duster flickering through the lab tables as he passed, his mouth squeezed into a tight line. Finally he paused, took a deep breath, and turned round to face her. Without another word, he quietly stepped onto the red X that marked the center of the circle of sensors, closed his eyes, and nodded.

“You won’t regret this,” Fred said, throwing a switch that started the machine humming loudly. “All you’ll feel is a slight tingling sensation, and then, whoosh, back in your own body. Or, you know, not.”

Spike opened his eyes to give her a rye look before saying, “Let’s get this done, yeah? Got booze to drink, cigs to smoke, and Angel to deck before he realizes I can.”

Fred shook her head with a laugh, then pushed the button to make it all begin. The humming of the machine increased in volume until it was nearly deafening, the sensors glowed a bright white, and then a loud bang was heard. One sensor exploded, then another, and another. Fred desperately tried to pull the plug on the machine while Spike looked around wildly, when suddenly a swirling double helix of light shot from the central meeting-point of the three remaining beams. It latched onto the first piece of living material it could find, engulfed it in rays of blinding orange light, and then disappeared as fast as lightening.

Unfortunately, the only living material in the lab had been Fred.


	2. Chapter 2

Fred landed with a dull thunk on a hillock covered in soft grass, and the spiraling lights that had surrounded her dissipated into nothingness. For a long minute, she remained with her nose pressed against the earth, panting in terror, trying to calm the racing of her heart. The soft smell of dew-covered earth and the green grass pressing into her face calmed her a little, though she would have been much happier to see the white tile floor of the lab below her instead.

“Okay, Fred,” she said to herself out loud, “think. Are all your parts here?”

She tried to move her arms and legs, fingers and toes, and found that all of them seemed to be in working order. With a sigh of relief, she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the sky, breathing deeply. She was just starting to calm down enough for her brain to function when a familiar face came into view above her, upside down.

“Miss? Are you… are you quite well?” asked the man in a delicate English accent.

Fred stared up at him, her mouth hanging open from shock.

“Spike?” she asked, her brain refusing to wrap itself around the only logical explanation for what she was seeing.

“Spike? Did you fall on something sharp?” the face said, its brows immediately knitting in concern.

Fred groaned, but it wasn’t in physical pain. She knew where she had to be.

“It’s 1879, isn’t it?” she asked gruffly as she pulled herself up into a seated position.

“Yes, of course,” the young man said assuringly. “I don’t quite understand what I’ve just seen, but are you certain you are alright.”

“I’m okay,” Fred said, rubbing a bruised elbow. “But what exactly did you see?”

“You… um… you’ll forgive me I hope if you think this quite mad, but I saw you fall out of the clear sky, surrounded in a spider web of light,” the man said as he carefully helped her to her feet. “You’re not an angel, perchance?”

“Nope, just a plain old American girl,” Fred said, stretching her aching back. “I just happen to be from the future.”

“The what?” the man said, his mouth hanging open as hers had a few moments before.

“I’m from about a century and change from now,” Fred said, “and, oh boy, I guess I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that. Quantum Leap was right. Time travel really does Swiss cheese your brain a little.”

“You’re a time traveler?” the man said, and there was an undeniable note of excitement. “Oh, but this is wonderful! This is utterly unheard of! How simply splendid!”

“You don’t have any trouble believing this?” Fred asked.

“Well, I did see you drop from nowhere with my own eyes, and I’ve always believed that humanity is capable of great creations, so why shouldn’t a time machine be possible,” he replied thoughtfully. “After all, who would have believed in locomotives before they had come about. Is it so far-fetched to believe that we might invent something to harness Cronos as well?”

Fred blinked and took in what was undoubtedly the human version of Spike. A pair of wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, knocked slightly askew in his haste to see whether she was alright. His clothes, a simple pair of brown woolen trousers with a matching coat, a pale cream shirt, and a maroon ascot, seemed worn in places, but they had obviously been mended with great care. His hair was much longer and a warm, light-brown shade that showed reddish highlights in the sun and curled into soft waves over his forehead. He was adorable. There was no other way to put it, and she smiled a little at the thought of what Spike would say to that.

“Oh dear,” he suddenly said and went several shades of red at once before immediately turning his back to her. “Ehm, Miss, you seem to have a rather large predicament.”

“You mean besides being in the wrong century?” she said wearily.

“Yes. It appears that your, um, your clothing didn’t all travel with you,” he said, stuttering.

“What!” she said, glancing down. She was relieved to see her lab coat, the hem of her gray skirt peeking out from under it, and even her shoes exactly where they should be. “Yes, they did.”

“B-b-but, your, em, limbs,” he said, gesturing frantically with his back still towards her. “They’re quite visible.”

“My limbs? Oh, geez, what am I thinking! I must be half-naked for Victorian England,” she said, smacking her head.

“Quite,” he replied in a voice that squeaked a little.

“I don’t suppose you could help me with that at all, could you?” Fred asked, feeling suddenly very embarrassed.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help a lady in distress,” he assured her. “Perhaps it would be best, though, if you moved off the green? You’re in the middle of a public park. It’s sheer luck that no one else has come along yet. The hydrangea bushes over there may provide suitable, ehm, privacy.”

“Thanks,” she said, quickly dashing the thirty or so feet to a thick row of hedges. “I’m, uh, all covered up now.”

“Thank heavens,” he breathed quietly before he turned around rather stiffly. “I live not far from here along with my mother. I could run home quickly and return with one of her gowns for you, but I fear leaving you alone in your current, ehm, predicament.”

“Oh, I’ll be okay for a minute. If anyone tries to hurt me, I’ll just slug them,” Fred assured him. “I can hit hard for a little thing.”

“Well, as there’s no other alternative, I’ll return as quickly as my legs will carry me, you may be certain,” he said, then was as good as his word as he sprinted down the park path with a speed that was extremely encouraging.

Left alone in the bushes, Fred began to go over in her mind all her options. She had, after all, been through a portal once before this, and she’d managed to come home again in one piece, relatively safe and sound, though not particularly sane for a while. She slowly came to the realization that this time, though, was intensely different. While Pylea had been in another dimension, it had at least existed in the same time frame as Earth. The same number of years had passed in Pylea as passed in her world. But now she was in the past, and it had happened entirely by a fluke. She supposed she might be able to build another device and attempt locking it in on her own molecules to send her back to her own time, but trying to find a power source, the equipment, the materials, the basic components…

“I’ve returned,” said the voice from outside the bush. Immediately afterwards, she heard a soft rustling of leaves as a dress was laid across the bush’s branches. “I think this will fit well enough.”

“Thank you,” she said as she grabbed the dress and threw it awkwardly over her head. It took her quite a while to do up all the buttons and hooks and laces, and she’d had to start over twice because things weren’t matching up, but at long last she managed to complete the task well enough to be decently clothed by the Victorians’ standards.

She finally came out from behind the leafy screen to find the one-day-Spike still standing with his back to the bush, obviously keeping a look out for any possible passers-by.

“Thanks again,” Fred said, tapping him lightly on the shoulder.

“No trouble,” he replied and smiled at her warmly if shyly. “Well, that much is taken care of, at least.”

“Yeah,” Fred said. “Now all I have to worry about is… everything.”

With a shuddering gasp, the full enormity of her situation, the fact that she was stranded in a time when the only person she knew had never seen her before, when her parents hadn’t even been born yet, when she had no home, no friends, no family, and wasn’t even in her own country came crashing down around her all at once. She tried to think of any possible solution to her problem, but there was none. With a small cry, she felt herself returning to that horrible, panicky place her mind had been imprisoned in for so long on Pylea, and her legs collapsed beneath her. Tears poured down her cheeks, and she found herself weeping uncontrollably, curled into a ball on the ground.

“Miss?” the man said, obviously horrified. He crouched beside her on the ground, tentatively searching for her hand.

Fred could only continue to cry until finally one coherent sentence passed her lips: “I don’t think I can never go home.”

“Oh, no,” he said, and the pity in his voice was obvious. “Oh, that’s dreadful! You poor thing. But, come now, Miss. We can’t have you stay out here in the park. As I’m the only person you must know in London, I’m responsible for you. Please, come home with me. Mother and I will look after you, and we’ll sort all this out.”

Fred blinked up at him, her tears distorting her vision, but she managed to give him a small smile as he handed her a handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes furiously and then blew her nose before allowing him to carefully help her to her feet.

"I don’t see what other choice I have but to say okay,” Fred said with a sniffle. “Thanks again.”

“Pardon my forwardness, but may I enquire as to your name?” he asked as he led her along the path.

“Fred Burkle,” she said, holding out a hand for him to shake. “Pleased to meet you. Well, sort of.”

Instead of taking her hand, he awkwardly caught it in one of his own and gave it a light kiss.

“William Gordon at your service, Miss Burkle,” he replied, then paused a moment. “They name women Fred in your time? How extraordinary.”

“My real name is Winifred, but my friends all call me Fred,” she explained, “and you’re the only friend I have in this place.”

“Then I may call you Fred?” he asked hesitantly.

“You sure can, William,” she said. She took his offered arm in hers and began to walk through the streets of Victorian London, determined to find a way to make her life here work.


	3. Chapter 3

The short stroll from the park to the Gordon household was extremely distracting. Everywhere Fred looked, she was confronted with yet another sight that drew her attention. The streets were full of horse-drawn carriages, Hansom cabs, carts full of produce pulled by donkeys, and enough dogs and cats to make a noise like Noah’s ark. She’d never seen so many animals in one place before, and William was obliged to help her thread their maze without soiling her skirts on the animals’ lovely little by-products on the ground.

 

If the animals were fascinating, the people themselves were astounding. In L.A., everyone tended to stay inside their cars, homes, and offices. People rarely went walking around the streets. But the sidewalks were incredibly crowded here. Women in fine dresses with narrow crinolines and bonnets, carrying parasols and reticules, covered from toe to neck bustled along the walkways, and men in three piece suits, each with a hat perched atop his head, strode quickly from one place to the next. Children in varying states of poverty or wealth according to their clothes played games on the sidewalk: marbles, tig, Ring Around the Rosy, jacks, running races, skipping rope. Fred had never seen so much activity, and yet there was a strange sense of politeness, safety, and familiarity in the air.

Still, not all was pleasant. She noticed a large number of beggars on corners, often blind or lame. Ragged children followed adults who seemed particularly dressed, begging them to buy flowers or matches. Her own time had poverty, certainly, but there seemed to be so much of it here, and the results were startlingly bad. The poor were far too thin, and painful-sounding coughs wracked many of them. She saw William quietly slip a coin into a cup held by one child whose dress was in tatters.

“Bless you, Mister William,” she’d said with a curtsey, but he’d just given her head a quick pat and kept going.

The smells of the city were also strange to her. There was, of course, no smell of exhaust or gasoline. But smoke poured from chimneys spouting from every building they passed. The scent of wood smoke hung heavily in the air, but beside it was the thicker smell of coal burning. The animals, too, contributed to the smell. Manure was everywhere, of course, and the scent of working animals and, she suspected, unwashed people added to the overall impression.

All this seemed to pass in a blur or color and sound as Fred was led through the streets. She did have a vague impression that a few heads had turned as she passed, had heard snatches of whispered questions about the strange new woman. All in all, she was thankful to arrive at the simple brick two-story building that was William’s home. It had an inviting look about it. A pair of potted red geraniums stood on the doorstep, one to either side of the front door, and window boxes on the floor above were filled with more of the same blossoms. William turned the brass doorknob and opened the door, allowing Fred inside.

“It isn’t at all luxurious,” William assured her, “but it is a happy home, none the less.”

Fred stepped inside to see a staircase leading to the next floor on one side, and a parlor painted a cheery yellow on the left. Simple furniture, a bit worn but comfortable, stood about the room and faced the fireplace, where a warm blaze crackled invitingly. A door in the back of the room seemed to lead to the kitchen, and the heavenly aroma of fresh bread baking greeted Fred’s nose from that direction.

“It’s a lovely home, William,” she said, giving him a smile, which he returned with thankfulness. “But, your mom… what exactly should we say?”

“Why the truth, of course,” he said, sounding a bit shocked.

“You think she’ll believe I fell out of the sky and I’m from the year 2003?” Fred asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I’ve never lied to Mother,” he said firmly. “If we tell her what has happened, I assure you, she will believe us.”

“Okay,” Fred said with a shrug, “but if we wind up in a mental institution, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

William laughed a bit, then became serious again. She could tell something had occurred to him, but he wasn’t quite ready to explain it. He picked up a poker beside the hearth and stirred the ashes thoughtfully, lost in his thoughts for a moment.

“She’s at a meeting of the Ladies’ Aid to Orphans and Widow Society,” he finally said. “She’ll be home in an hour or so. Are you perhaps hungry after your, ehm, trip?”

“You know, now you mention it, I’m starved,” Fred said as her stomach answered with a loud growl.

“Well, then, tea is in order, and perhaps a sandwich or two,” he said, rubbing his hands together rapidly and seeming glad to have something to do. “I shouldn’t like a lady from the future to have a poor opinion of our hospitality.”

“Considering you’ve already taken me into your house, like, an hour after meeting me, I think you’re plenty hospitable,” Fred said with a grin while following him into the kitchen.

“Pray, don’t mention it,” William said off-handedly as though taking in strange women from other centuries was a perfectly normal matter.

Fred sat at the small, rough-hewn kitchen table and watched with avid interest as William put a kettle on yet another fire in here, waited for it to sing, then added loose tea to a plain ceramic pot and let it steep for a few minutes.

“I’m sorry to say we haven’t any sugar about the place,” William said, looking uncomfortable. “There’s milk, though, if you wish.”

“That’s okay. I usually just drink it plain,” Fred said quickly.

He handed her a delicate white porcelain cup painted with butterflies and took a different one for himself. Observing it closely, she noticed that it was chipped in a few places. Along with the tea, William placed on the table a plate that held part of the loaf of bread she had smelled when she first stepped in. He sliced it into thin pieces, buttered them, and presented them to her on a smaller plate that didn’t quite match her cup, keeping a single slice for himself, which he ate to keep her company.

“This is real nice of you,” Fred said. “I mean, you know, everything.”

“I imagine this whole ordeal must be most distressing for you,” William said, stirring his tea before taking a sip. “I take it you weren’t trying to come here?”

“Nope,” she said, folding up a slice of bread and practically swallowing it whole. “An experiment went wrong.”

“Might I ask where you were prior to this?”

“I was in Los Angeles, California,” she said softly.

“I thought you were American,” he said excitedly. “So you’re a Californian. Are they still having the gold rush there?”

“No, that’s been over a long while now,” Fred said. “I wasn’t born there, though. I’m a Texas-girl from birth.”

William looked absolutely enthralled. “I’ve read stories of the West! All sorts of interesting things happen there. Tell me, have you ever seen a cowboy?”

“There were a few in the town where I grew up,” she said, pleased to see she could at least be an interesting guest in return for his kindness. “Some of the still ride horses and do cattle drives, but mostly they use trucks now for that.”

“Trucks?” he asked.

“They’re machines that are sort of like carriages, but without horses,” she explained, refilling her teacup. “Oh, geez. I probably shouldn’t tell you too much about the future or else it might change history or something.”

“I suppose so,” William said, looking crestfallen.

Fred regarded him for a minute. She was still stunned to find this version of Spike so sweet, gentle, and bashful. Still, there had been moments when the vampire’s bravado had cracked a little and she had seen hints at the man he must have once been. It fit in a very strange way.

“Do you have family who will be searching for you?” William asked tentatively.

“There’s my mom and dad,” she said unhappily. “They’re going to be upset.”

“But no husband or… or sweetheart?” William asked while studying the pattern on his plate intently.

“No,” Fred said. “I do have a lot of good friends though: Wesley, Gunn, Angel, Harmony. Well, maybe not so much Harmony. But Spike’s going to be blaming himself up one side and down the other for this, like he doesn’t have enough problems as it is.”

“Spike,” William said. “That’s the name you called me when we first met.”

“Yeah, well, you look a little alike,” Fred said evasively. If there was one topic she really shouldn’t touch to keep history from unraveling, it was William’s alter ego.

Just at the moment, the sound of the front door opening was heard, and William immediately got to his feet.

“Mother must be home,” he said nervously. “I’d best introduce the two of you.”

Fred nodded, the butterflies on her teacup having somehow seemed to land in her stomach where their wings were currently beating fast enough to start a hurricane. She stood up a bit too fast and accidentally knocked over the entire table, sending the teacups flying and succeeding in spattering William’s coat with enough tea to almost drown. She groaned.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, immediately getting to her hands and knees and trying to set the table upright again.

“William? Is that you, dear?” said a female voice.

At that moment, Anne Gordon entered the kitchen and beheld the scene before her: her son drenched in tea, and a young woman who was a complete stranger sitting on the floor, picking up the bits of their broken tea service and dressed in her second best gown. She had to fight back a smile. After all, it did look rather promising.

“Mother!” William said, surveying the damage around him. “Believe me, I can explain!”

“Don’t distress yourself so, William,” she said. “Are you and your friend quite well?”

“Yes, m’am,” Fred said, springing to her. “I’m real sorry about this. This is all my fault.”

“Accidents happen, child,” William’s mother said. “I am simply glad you are unharmed. William, aren’t you going to introduce me this young lady.”

“Oh, yes, of course! Mother, this is Miss Winifred Burkle from America,” he said, ushering her forward. “Miss Burkle, this is my mother, Mrs. Anne Gordon.”

“Please to meet you,” Fred said trying to decide whether a curtsey or a handshake was in order.

“And I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance as well,” Anne replied, giving the girl a kiss on the cheek. “My, you must be far from home.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Fred confided wearily.

It fell to William to explain to his mother what he had seen and what Fred had told him, and he did exactly that. Mrs. Gordon, for her part, listened, never once speaking a word until William had finished his tale.

“I see,” she said switching her gaze from William to Fred. “Is this true, Miss Burkle?”

“Hard as it may be to believe, yes, m’am,” Fred said, feeling extremely small. She was painfully aware of how farfetched the story must seem, and William’s mother’s eyes were glued to her, pinning her with a look.

A long pause stretched across the room for several minutes, with William alternately looking at his mother and Fred, Fred becoming increasingly uncomfortable, and Anne sitting quite still.

Slowly, Anne nodded. “If you say this is true, then I will believe you,” she said. “William has never lied to me, and I don’t sense any deception from you. As William has already said, you have the hospitality of our home such as it is.”

Fred breathed a sigh. She’d never even realized she had been holding her breath to begin with. William sighed as well, and Fred caught his eye, exchanging a glance with him of pure relief.

“Thank you, Mrs. Gordon, but I don’t mean to be a burden here for long,” Fred said gratefully. “I’m going out to get a job first thing tomorrow. I earn my keep.”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Gordon said, nodding in approval. “What is it that you can do?”

Fred could have provided several dozen answers to that question if it weren’t for a very serious problem: she had absolutely no references here. Added on to that, not many places would hire a woman.

Oh, dear,” Fred said, the corner of her mouth screwing up. “I don’t suppose anyone you know wants to hire a quantum physicist, do they?”

“I’m afraid not,” Mrs. Gordon said with a shake of her head, “not that I know what one is. Do you perhaps do stichery work?”

“Um, no.”

“Can you cook?”

“I can do okay in my time, but I don’t know how to use one of your kinds of ovens.”

“Have you ever taught school?”

“No, but I’m good in math, chemistry, biology, anatomy, astronomy,” Fred began listing off on her fingers. “There’s more, but I don’t think they’ve been discovered yet.”

Mrs. Gordon raised her eyebrows, duly impressed, and said, “I think, perhaps, I may be able to help you. The Ladies’ Aid to Orphans and Widows Society is attempting to open a school for the daughters of under-privileged and impoverished Londoners. Thus far, we’ve found instructors for reading and writing, including my son, but no teacher of any qualifications would agree to teach math and the sciences to a group of girls for what, I must admit, would be very little pay. In fact, our meeting today concerned exactly that. Do you think you might be interested in the position, Miss Burkle?”

Fred’s mouth gaped open before she could at last stutter out a reply. “That’s… that’s perfect!”

“Then it is settled,” Mrs. Gordon said happily. “The school will not open for another month yet, so you will have some time to become acquainted to your new home, which will, of course, be with us.”

“Oh, I couldn’t impose,” Fred began, but Mrs. Gordon interrupted her.

“I insist. I was thinking of boarding the teacher anyway to supplement the small salary,” she said.

“Mother,” William broke in, “will you be wanting me to ready Pe… a room for her, then?”

William’s mother looked up quickly at that first broken syllable, and Fred saw a look of pain shoot through her.

“You can say Peter’s name, dearheart,” she said, though Fred noticed she stumbled a bit over the name herself before turning to Fred. “Peter was my other son, seven years younger than William, but he died of the influenza three years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Fred said, and without realizing just how she was kneeling on the floor in front of Mrs. Gordon, taking her hand in her own.

Anne took a moment to recover herself, and her eyes seemed overly bright, but she smiled at Fred warmly. “It’s alright, my dear. I’m quite certain Peter wouldn’t mind you taking his room.”

William slipped out of the room delicately, leaving the two women alone so that he could quickly air out the small room that had once been his brother’s and put fresh sheets on the bed. The Gordons had no servants at all, and though the neighbors and the alumni of William’s university looked down on them for it, as well as for their poor financial circumstances in general, he was unashamed of doing for himself. He did wish he could make his mother’s life easier, though. Ever since his father had died, followed by Peter a year later, things had been very difficult for them.

When he returned an hour later, he found Fred and his mother sitting amiably in front of the fire, laughing and chatting. His mother had just let out a great fountain of laughter, a sound William hadn’t heard since long before Peter’s death, and he felt intensely grateful to the young woman for provoking that sound. He looked at the two of them, unobserved from his vantage point in the doorframe, and felt a soft stirring in his heart. Fred really was quite lovely, especially when she laughed, and even dressed in Mother’s worn clothes that didn’t quite fit, she somehow radiated a quiet beauty. In a way, she reminded him of Cecily, and yet, there was something in Fred’s face that he never saw in Cecily’s. It took him a moment to place what it was, but when he did, it was a revelation: kindness.

Just at that instant, his mother began to cough, more than likely brought on by the bout of laughter, but it quickly progressed into the far more troubling wracking cough that the doctors said meant consumption. William moved beside her in an instant.

“Mother? Shall I fetch a glass of water for you?” he asked softly, but his mother shook her head.

“Is there something wrong?” Fred asked. “That’s a bad sounding cough.”

William’s mother closed her eyes for a moment and took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself before answering Fred. “Yes, I’m afraid it is quite bad, and unlikely to get any better. But, let’s not discuss it now. You must be very tired, I’m sure. William, is the young lady’s bedroom ready?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Come, I’ll show you to your room.”

“Thanks, William. I am kind of tired,” she said, yawning widely.

Carefully lighting a taper, he led the way up the stairs and to a small room that held a bed, a chair, a tiny table, and a chest of drawers. He set the candle on the table and turned around.

“Sleep well, Fred,” he said, then turned and left Fred to her thoughts. Fred didn’t have time to ponder her new state of affairs for long, though, before she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

When the next morning dawned and sunlight streamed through the window of her tiny room, Fred wasn’t certain exactly where she was at first. The bits and pieces of the day before came back to her like fragments of a strange dream, but then she remembered everything fully, and it felt like a stone had gone crashing into her chest. She let out a soft sob and buried her head in the unfamiliar pillow.

 

“Miss Burkle?” asked Mrs. Gordon from the hallway. “May I come in?”

“Oh, um, yes,” Fred responded, wiping the tears away with a fist.

The door opened, and the older woman came in and knew at once Fred had been crying.

“Poor child,” she said softly, patting her hand. “I can’t even imagine how foreign this place must be for you.”

“Oh, you’ve all been real nice,” Fred assured her. “Just as nice as can be. But I do miss my family and my friends, and thinking that I might never see them again hurts.”

“Of course it does,” she said soothingly. “But you are among friends here, if that’s a consolation, but you go ahead and cry if you have a need to.”

“Think I’m about cried out for now,” Fred said firmly.

“Then why not come downstairs and we’ll see about getting you some breakfast, and perhaps later the two of us might go shopping for a few necessaries for you.”

The day moved quickly. Fred quickly ate a piece of bread and a few strips of bacon with William and his mother, savoring the taste as though she hadn’t eaten in months. Afterwards, Fred and Mrs. Gordon went shopping in a very small, rather moth-eaten looking store that sold second-hand garments. Fred had a difficult time finding anything that would fit because she was so much taller than the average woman of the time, but eventually she found a plain dress made from a brown and gray plaid cotton. It wasn’t really her taste, but she was simply happy to have a dress of her own, though admittedly she had to borrow against her first month’s salary to buy it. Her shoes were odd-looking for Victorian London, but they would do well enough in a pinch.

After a long day out searching for the best bargain they could find, the two women came home to find William gone and a pot of stew simmering over the kitchen fire.

“William is still working at his job as a clerk in a dry goods store until a week before the school begins classes,” Anne explained. “He works entirely too hard. I’m quite glad you arrived on a Sunday.”

“Which reminds me,” Fred said, “what is the date exactly?”

“It’s July 28, 1879,” Anne told her.

“Well, at least I hit the year almost smack-dab in the middle,” she thought glumly. Good aim; wrong target.

Just before dark, William’s voice rang through the doorway, and Fred and Anne greeted him. He looked tired.

He accompanied the two ladies into the kitchen, where the stew was at last ladled out into bowls and eaten with great appetite. It was only then that Fred realized she had never eaten lunch. The day over at long last, she once more found herself in bed, though this time clad in a nightdress rather than falling asleep in the same clothes she’d worn that day.

The rest of the week went by quickly, and Fred quickly began to learn the chores and tasks that needed to be done each day. After nearly lighting the house on fire three times, she caught the trick of kerosene lanterns. The manual labor of washing day was so exhausting that she began to realize why gyms were completely unnecessary in the 19th century. Her cooking skills over the kitchen fire and the wood-burning stove were still quite bad, though. Everything she tried turned out blackened on one half and raw on the other. Anne just laughed and said everyone had to have difficulty with something. The two quickly became fast friends.

When Saturday rolled around once again, she was able to pause for a breath. William was home, and Fred was thrilled to see him again. Often, he was so tired from his work that he began to doze at the kitchen table, and he was far too exhausted to talk for long. Saturday, though, was a happy day. It was when William could at last set aside his work and take the weekend for his own pursuits. When he asked Fred if she would accompany him to the park again, Anne smiled behind her hand and hoped that she was right about the pair of them.

William loved the park dearly, and Fred could see why. It was a little oasis of green in the middle of the city, and the air felt cleaner here. Awkwardly, he offered her his arm, and the two walked companionably down a quiet path, listening to birds chirping in the morning sunlight. Everything seemed extremely pleasant.

“Well, if it isn’t William Shakespeare,” yelled a voice behind them.

William jolted to a stop, but didn’t turn around. Fred distinctly heard a quiet, “Bloody hell, not now,” come from him, and she raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“I say, William, you aren’t being at all polite,” said a different voice, laced with nasty laughter. “Oh, wait, he’s got a ladyfriend with him!”

The pair of them turned around to confront a group of seven young men, all roughly William’s age, smiling in a way that wasn’t the least bit friendly. Fred disliked them immediately.

“I’ve no wish to speak with you, Robert,” William said very clearly. “Leave us alone.”

“No wish to speak with me?” said one of the larger men, and it was easy to sense that he was the ring-leader. “That hurts, Will, it really does. Or it would if you mattered one iota, which you don’t. But who’s this with you? Cousin? Only way a pretty thing like that would be seen with you.”

He eyed Fred appreciatively, and William’s arm tensed under Fred’s hand.

“You’ll leave the lady alone,” he growled.

“Let’s let her decide that,” Robert said, ignoring him. “Who would you rather spend the day with, lovely? William the flat-broke charity case, or me?”

Fred looked him up and down coldly before very clearly enunciating, “William. And I’m not a cousin.”

The males catcalled appreciatively.

“American by the sound of her,” Robert said, stepping closer into William’s space. “What you do, momma’s boy? Go down to the cheap end of town and buy yourself a bit of fluff for a few hours?”

William turned to face Fred directly.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said between clenched teeth, then turned around and socked Robert so hard in the nose that the larger man wound up sitting on the ground.

“Well, what are you lot waiting for?” he yelled from the gravel path, still holding his nose. “Get him!”

William, in spite of his size, proved to be rather good in a fight. With six men attacking, he was still able to keep his feet for quite a while. Things weren’t looking good for him, though, until Fred jumped on one of the men from behind, winding up riding him piggyback style and choking him until he joined Robert on the ground. William looked up in amazement, though he was sucker punched for it. As Fred moved on to yet another opponent, this time throwing him off balance with a martial arts move Angel had taught her more than a year ago for self-defense, William grinned broadly.

“Let’s just get out of here,” one of the men said suddenly. “I’m not hitting a girl, even if she is half-animal!”

As William and Fred watched in amusement, the rest of the gang of wealthy young men with too much time on their hands all found similar excuses for leaving, until only Robert, still holding a bleeding nose, was the only one left.

“You’re as freakish as he is,” Robert declared resoundingly. “The pair of you deserve each other. I hope you give him the pox!”

With that, he joined the rest of his group in their hasty retreat. Fred and William looked at each other in amazement.

“Oh, your mother isn’t going to be happy about this,” Fred said, running her finger over a ripped seam in his jacket.

“I suppose not,” he agreed, but couldn’t help smiling. “Was worth it, though, to see Robert sitting in the dust. And you! Where did you learn to do that?”

“If a girl lives in L.A., she needs to be able to take care of herself,” Fred said with a note of pride. “Do I look a mess?”

“No,” William said truthfully. “You’ve barely a mark on you, thank heavens.”

“Then let’s just continue our walk,” Fred said. “I don’t want that kind of garbage ruining our day.”

“I quite agree,” William said, and in a moment they were once more walking along the path, though they were talking and laughing over what had occurred and looking a bit the worse for wear.

“So, why did he call you William Shakespeare?” Fred asked.

William stiffened again for a moment. “I… um… I’m a poet.”

Fred was utterly stunned. Never in a thousand years would she have guessed that Spike as a human had written poetry.

“Really?”

"Yes, though I must admit I struggle with my verses,” he said, turning red. “They’re quite, ehm, bad. The others found some of my writings at school once, and I’ve never heard the end of it.”

“They can’t be that bad,” Fred said with a wave of her hand. “If you mean what’s behind it, they’ll be fine.”

“Perhaps that was the trouble,” he thought to himself, remembering his feelings for Cecily. Could it be that the reason his poetry about her was so stilted and poorly written was because what he felt for her wasn’t enough to inspire poetry? And why was it then when he looked at Fred, phrases and lines and whole poems seemed to float effortlessly into his mind?

“I believe my problems have intruded quite enough into this day,” William said quickly. “I should very much like to hear more about you. What is Texas like?”

“Oh, it’s pretty,” Fred said with a smile. “The country just feels so big, you know? It’s like there’s plenty of room to breathe.”

“It sounds wonderful,” William said. “And what did you do there?”

“You mean besides studying constantly?” Fred laughed. “When I had a few hours free, I’d go down to the local stable and ride. My dad let me take lessons when I was little because I begged and begged.”

“You enjoy riding, then?”

“Oh, sure! It makes everything else seem far away,” Fred said. “Do you ride?”

“Yes,” William said, “though I rarely have time for it.”

“Well, we should make time!” Fred said decidedly. “Is there a way we could go riding next Saturday?”

“I believe there is,” William said, delighted that she wanted to spend another Saturday with him. It almost sounded like she hoped it would be a regular outing. “Another fellow at work owes me a favor. I’ll ask him if he’ll allow us to borrow his horses for the day. He has two; I believe a wealthy uncle left them to him.”

Fred smiled winningly at William, and he felt his knees go weak.

Their Sunday passed in blissful rest, with a chicken dinner served, the only real meat of the week. It was as pleasant and happy a meal as any three people ever had. Fred watched William animatedly speaking with his mother, gesticulating with a chicken leg in his hand, discussing the master poets he would include in his lesson plans for the new school. The firelight glinted against his glasses, the shadows of the flames throwing his cheekbones into sharp relief. Fred suddenly realized that it had grown extremely quiet and noticed with a start that Anne and William were both looking at her expectantly.

“Sorry?” Fred apologized, realizing a question had been asked to her and she had absolutely no idea what it was.

“I was just saying to mother that I thought we should hold off on Milton until the older classes,” William said patiently, “as it’s a bit much to take in all at once. Do you agree?

“Oh, um, yeah,” Fred said in embarrassment, knowing she must have been caught staring. “Better to build them up to the harder stuff.”

Anne said nothing at all out loud, but she ate her dinner with a great deal of enjoyment thereafter.

On Monday night, William came home tired but happy. He had managed to get the co-worker to loan the horses to him for the day.

“There’s only one problem, though,” William said. “I’m afraid the only saddles he has are the ones his uncle left him along with the horses.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” Fred asked.

“They’re Western saddles,” William said with a shudder. “I’ve never ridden on anything so huge and bulky as those monstrosities!”

Fred laughed at him. “Well, at least I’m in luck. I don’t understand how you guys can ride on those teeny-tiny little saddles here. Western is the only way I’ve ever ridden.”

“Yes, but, they aren’t sidesaddle,” he said delicately.

Fred rolled her eyes. “I know it’s hard to believe, William, but in my time, women actually wear pants. I’ve never ridden in a skirt and wouldn’t know how to ride side-saddle.”

William blinked rapidly at that declaration, then said, “But, ehm, that’s rather a problem.”

Fred suddenly realized that she was indeed going to have to ride in skirt or risk being arrested for indecency. “Well, you’ll have to deal with the saddle, and I’ll have to deal with the skirt. Between the two of us, at least the horses will laugh a lot.”

When Saturday came, William left before dawn to collect the horses from the other man and bring them back home. About an hour later, he arrived at the front door with a pair of horses. He was riding, albeit obviously uncomfortably, one that was charcoal gray, and the other, which was brown with one white sock on its left foreleg, was following along behind. Fred patted the brown horse’s forelock gently, talking softly to it.

“Good morning,” she said. “And what would your name be?”

“That’s Princess you’re speaking to,” William said, “and I’m riding Dodgy.”

“Dodgy? That’s not exactly a confidence-inspiring name,” Fred said with a wry face.

“I’m hoping it means he dodges trouble,” William said, shifting again in his saddle. “So, shall we away?”

Fred looked up the saddle, trying to figure out just how she was going to manage riding in her dress, but eventually she shrugged and swung herself up by the stirrup, choosing to straddle and let the skirts bunch as they would. William had blinked a bit, and she knew it was a little indecorous and that a few inches of stockings above her ankle were exposed to the world, but she wasn’t going to let that spoil the day. She gave William a wink, then took off down the quiet morning street at a good pace, leaving him to follow in her dust.

They arrived quickly at the park, which did have a set of bridle paths, though they were considerably tamer than the grasslands Fred had ridden across as a teenager in Texas. Still, they were enough to get up a bit of speed, and she and William found each other riding next to one another a brisk trot, enjoying the feel of the wind on their faces.

Or rather, Fred hoped William was enjoying himself. He did seem to be having some trouble adjusting the different style of saddle. There simply seemed to be so much more of it than the small English saddle he had always used before.

“What on earth do they need this thing for?” he said, pointing to the horn.

“That’s supposed to be where a rope would go,” Fred explained. “That way a cowboy would always have a lasso ready to rope a stray cow.”

William looked at it uncertainly. “Well, I suppose on the other side of the world it might have a function, but here it’s just plain awkward. Who ever heard of putting a handle on a horse?”

Fred giggled at the way he put it, but promptly stopped laughing as a tree branch they had both ignored due to their conversation whacked William squarely in the chest and knocked him cleanly out of his saddle and onto the ground.

“William!” Fred cried in alarm, dismounting so quickly that she got the hem of her dress caught under her shoe in the stirrup and fell herself, landing directly on top of William with a loud “Ooof!” from both of them.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes, except for my dignity,” he said, stretching his sore back. “Are you quite alright?”

“Pretty much. Just a bruise or two,” Fred said. “Uh, William? Don’t look now, but you’re beneath me.”

The two of them remained exactly where they were, Fred half-laying on top of William, and William’s arm resting lightly around her waist where it had automatically sprung when she had fallen. William was blushing rose red, but he couldn’t imagine wanting to move from the spot. For once in his life, a girl wasn’t laughing or calling him a fool. She didn’t care that he wrote bad poetry or that his jacket elbows were patched. She was simply looking down at him through long lashes, her brown eyes filled with warmth. Cautiously, as though afraid she might disappear into smoke, William moved his arm slowly up her back until it was tangled in the curls at the base of her neck, then guided her face down to his.

The kiss was soft, sweet, gentle, everything he had hoped it would be, and she wasn’t pulling away from him or slapping him or any of the nightmares he had had about kissing her. Her eyelashes fluttered lightly against his cheek, and he could believe the warmth of her.

Fred, for her part, was all but ready to hire a marching band and declare a national holiday to celebrate William finally getting up the nerve to kiss her. She’d been hoping for this moment for weeks now, and she was happy to find out that he was every bit as good a kisser as she had thought he would be.

Eventually, their lips separated, and William gave Fred’s forehead a light kiss before she laid her head back on his chest.

“I’d no idea,” he whispered softly. “Everything else, the girls I’d thought I cared for, all of it, they pale in comparison to you. Fred, I love you.”

“That’s sweeter than any poetry I’ve ever read,” Fred said, lifting her head up to look into his eyes, practically swimming in the blue depths. “And I feel the same. I love you, William.”

“My love,” he crooned over and over, dropping soft kisses on her face. “My beautiful love. My fiery one. My darling of utter perfection…”

Just as it seemed William was on the verge of an explosion of bad poetic endearments, Dodgy chose that particular moment to steal Fred’s bonnet from her head and run away with it down the path.

“Stupid horse!” William yelled, but he had to laugh as the two of them chased the horse, managing to rescue the hat before it was eaten. “Your chapeau, my lady,” he said, whisking it back onto her head.

“Thanks,” Fred said, trying to straighten it. “Now, what were we doing before Dodgy here interrupted us?”

“Oh, do let me think,” William said, putting a finger to his chin and pretending to consider the matter carefully. “I recall riding and then falling…”

“Is that all?” Fred smirked.

“Falling head over heels in love,” William said, grinning, then gave her a quick kiss before offering a hand up to her saddle. “As much as I’d like to extend this lovely day, I’m afraid I promised Alfred I’d return his horses to him by one, and time is getting away from us.”

Regretfully, Fred and William rode back to the Gordon home, where William took his leave to return their horses to their owner. As Fred went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, a habit that was quickly growing into an obsession for her, she was greeted by Anne, who was just taking the kettle off the fire.

“Did you enjoy your ride, my dear?” asked Mrs. Gordon with a knowing smile.

“Yup,” Fred said as she took the teacups down from a shelf near the sink. They were the same ones she had managed to overturn on her first day there, and William and she had spent a Sunday evening carefully gluing handles back on and making them relatively waterproof again. “We had a real nice time.”

Anne continued to smile as Fred started to blush.

“I’ve got a problem,” Fred finally said, sitting down at Anne’s feet and handing her a cup.

Anne said nothing, but poured the tea into the cups carefully, waiting for Fred to tell her what was on her mind. Fred fidgeted on the threadbare hearthrug, her arms and legs suddenly seeming awkward and gangly as they often did when she was trying to find the right words to explain a situation.

“I’m in love with your son,” she finally blurted out.

Anne sighed in relief. “I’m extremely glad to hear it, Winifred,” she said, putting a hand under her chin and raising the girl’s face to her. “I liked you from the first moment I saw you, and I believe the same could be said for my son, only moreso. He’s had a series of disappointments of the heart, and I’m happy to find that his feelings are returned at last, and by one worthy of him.”

Fred hugged the woman impetuously, succeeding in breaking the teacups yet again in the process.

“Oh, sorry m’am!” Fred apologized as she tried to gather the broken bits. “I didn’t mean to…”

“That’s more than alright,” Anne said, dismissing the mess with a wave of her hand. “Now, I feel that this was not the problem you wished to discuss. At least, I don’t see a problem in what you’ve said.”

“No,” Fred said quickly. “William and I have told each other how we feel, but…”

“It’s your home, isn’t it?” Anne said, reading the thought in the girl’s face.

“Yeah,” Fred said, staring into the fire. “I love William, really, but I miss my family and my friends and, well, my world.”

“I can see that you would,” Anne said.

“I don’t think I can ever get home. I’ve even drafted out some plans for a possible inter-chronological teleportation device, but none of them are even vaguely feasible,” Fred said wringing her hands in awkwardness. “But if I ever did find a way to get home, I do know one thing. I’d be the only one who could go.”

“You’d have to leave William behind you,” Anne said, understanding. “I see. So you must make a choice: your world or your heart. I don’t envy you the decision. But you are certainly the only one who can make it. I beg only this of you. If you believe that you will someday leave, please don’t hurt my son.”

“I know,” Fred agreed. “I never intended it to go this far, but when we kissed today…”

“You kissed?” Anne said, slightly shocked.

“Oh, um, probably breaking the rules of propriety again, aren’t I?” Fred said, her nose wrinkling at her own slip. “Whoops.”

Anne blinked and got herself another cup, filled it with tea, and drank it extremely quickly, followed by another cup that soon followed it.

“Yes, I believe I’ve recovered now,” she muttered quietly to herself. “What you and William choose to do is quite your own affair, and as William told you, he has never lied to me. He, and you as well, needn’t feel you must tell me everything, though, either.”

Fred winced, but Anne patted her hand comforting as William entered the room, and the usual evening stew was ladled out.


	5. Chapter 5

The weeks until the opening of the school passed very quickly. Fred had to remember when preparing lesson plans that she couldn’t teach anything that hadn’t been discovered yet, so she need to do “reverse research,” as she called it: looking over the textbooks to see what wasn’t in them. William tactfully pointed out that the young girls who would be coming to classes more than likely would need to learn basic arithmetic first, and Fred agreed, but she had high hopes of establishing an advanced program for any girls who had a natural gift for the subject. The zest that Fred had for the school was only matched by William’s equal enthusiasm for the job of teaching reading, writing, grammar, spelling, and literature. The two were very well matched indeed, Anne thought with a smile, hoping that Fred’s dilemma would reach a happy conclusion for them all.

When the doors to the school finally opened, there was little fanfare. The building was little more than a shack, and all classes were conducted in the same room. The girls were crammed into tiny rows of chairs, often sharing textbooks and slates, but they were so eager for learning that they practically hummed with excitement. Fred recognized the little beggar girl William had given a coin to on her first day sitting in one of the front rows, clutching a slate pencil as though it were made of diamond.

Coming home that night, though, was another matter entirely. As William and Fred walked back to the Gordon house, they exchanged looks.

“How did yours turn out?” Fred asked finally.

“A few knew letters, but most haven’t the vaguest idea of how to read or write, even the older students,” William admitted. “This is going to be uphill work. How did it go with you?”

“Pretty much the same thing,” Fred said. “Most of them can count and recognize numbers, and a few of the older ones can add and subtract some smaller numbers, but that’s it.”

“I do believe it will be a while before we are covering Milton and chemistry,” William said.

“But we’ll get there,” Fred said, taking his arm soothingly. “Everybody’s got to start somewhere, right?”

“Right,” William agreed, but his tone was a bit nervous.

William and Fred continued teaching at the school during the week and taking outings in the park on their Saturdays, and their feelings for one another continued to grow, but Fred was still thinking about the possibility of going home. At night, she would sometimes stay up well past midnight, scrawling theorems and equations on scraps of paper, barely restraining herself from writing on the walls. Anne would sometimes see the glow of her candle coming underneath her door, and she would hope her instincts were right.

By the time November came around, both William and Fred could see real progress happening at the school, and the work before them seemed much less bleak. The results were starting to be noticed, as well. Another Ladies’ Aid group had heard of their school and had sent a representative to see how things were managed. Her report must have been very good indeed, for the group held a charity rummage sale for the school, which allowed them to purchase more textbooks and supplies. The salaries for the teachers, who still numbered only two, were quite low, but Fred and William combined were able to improve the Gordon household considerably. But Fred was saving up for one particular surprise.

Of course, Thanksgiving wasn’t celebrated in England, but Fred still decided to mark the holiday in her own way. She waited until the Saturday after when the day would normally have occurred to hold their feast since she wanted both William and her to have the full day off. When the morning came, she was dressed and out the door well before sunrise, running to the nearby butcher’s. He seemed a bit surprised at her request, but he gave her exactly what she asked for. After several other stops to buy spices and a few other necessary ingredients, Fred had everything she needed. Though she had spent almost every penny she’d saved, she found herself smiling all the way home.

By the time she opened the door, the sun was up, and William and his mother were both extremely curious as to what she was up to.

“You’ll see,” Fred replied, grabbing a piece of buttered bread and beginning her preparations.

“Um, Fred,” William said delicately, “you’re not, well, going to try to… cook… something, are you?”

Fred laughed at him, then gave him a wink. “There’s cooking, and then there’s barbeque,” she said firmly. “And any Texan girl worth her salt can barbeque.”

“Barbeque?” William asked.

“Old American tradition. Well, sorta. See, my momma wasn’t really all that great a cook either, and on her first Thanksgiving with daddy, the turkey she was trying to make accidentally blew up,” Fred explained. “Talk about a mess. She got all upset, but daddy said that he liked spare ribs better than turkey any day of the year, so he set up the barbeque out on the desk and they grilled dinner. They had barbeque instead of turkey every Thanksgiving after that, so it’s what I grew up on.”

“Charming story,” William said, “but I don’t believe I’ve ever, ehm, heard of barbeque before.”

“Oh, it’s just takin’ a big old hunk of meat, soakin’ it in barbeque sauce, and setting it to cook on an open grill,” Fred said off-handedly. “The secret is getting a good sauce, and I happen to have the best recipe on the planet, but, as is always the case with great chefs, it’s secret, so you two just scoot!”

William and Anne were summarily ejected from the kitchen with a flick of an apron. The mother and son exchanged a look.

“Son,” Anne said with a note of humor in her voice, “perhaps we’d best write down whom the family belongings will go to in case we all should perish suddenly for some reason.”

William looked skyward, but did glance rather nervously at the kitchen.

An hour later, Fred allowed them back into the kitchen. The ribs were covered in a thick reddish paste, and more of it sat in a bowl on the counter.

“Now all I have to do is set up the grill,” Fred said with a grin. “I dug a little fire pit in the backyard yesterday, and this little piece of iron grillwork I bought from the blacksmith this morning aught to do just fine. William, will you get some firewood and matches ready?”

“Of course,” William agreed, still rather wary. True, street merchants cooked chestnuts and the like in the open, and he’d seen some of the homeless of London toasting bits of meat over open flames they used to warm themselves, but, what was it Fred called them? Spare ribs?

Fred oversaw the making of the fire, William explaining that he didn’t like the idea of stray, windblown spark near her skirts. Once the fire was lit, though, Fred watched the wood carefully until she was certain that they had reached just the right temperature. Then, with great ceremony, she lowered the ribs onto the grill. A pleasant hissing rang through the air, and she nodded in satisfaction.

“This’ll take a little while,” she said.

At that moment, Anne began to cough. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m afraid the weather is rather cold for my constitution. Please, you young people stay outside and enjoy the fire, but I feel I should go indoors.”

“Are you certain I shouldn’t go with you, Mother?” William asked, concerned.

“No, no,” said Anne quickly. “I’ll be just fine.”

It was remarkable how quickly her cough disappeared as soon as she was inside the door.

Fred had pulled over a rough bench and sat down before the fire, keeping careful watch over her ribs and occasionally basting them with the remaining sauce. William soon joined her. The size of the bench was so small that there was very little room, and they were obliged to sit quite close to one another. As had become his habit, he immediately took her hands in his own, gently rubbing her fingers as they spoke. They talked about the ordinary, everyday things of their lives: the school, the neighbors, their Saturday outings, but always in the gentle voices and with the ever-present smiles of those in love at their best moments.

It didn’t take long for their talk to become interspersed with brief kisses, increasing in frequency until it was more a case of their kisses being interspersed with brief sentences. At last, after the ribs had been dutifully turned and basted once more, they abandoned words altogether and allowed themselves long, lingering kisses, accompanied by soft caresses, though, Fred was rather frustrated to admit, always with absolute, total propriety.

Finally, William drew back a bit, and Fred saw him fumbling awkwardly at his inner jacket pocket. His fingers closed around what he was looking for, and he blushed endearingly, biting his lip.

“What’s up?” Fred asked curiously.

He took a deep breath, and the next thing she knew, he was on one knee in front of her, holding up a ring that sparkled with a small diamond.

“I’ve written this proposal a thousand times,” he said, stuttering slightly, “but every one came out wrong, so I’ll simply say what’s in my heart. I love you, Fred. I’ve never known anyone else like you. You’re kind and intelligent. You make me laugh, and you when tears come into your eyes, I want to cry with you. I live for the times during the day when I see you, speak with you, hear what your day has been like. I know this is sudden, I know we’ve known each other only a few months, and I know your other life still calls to you. But I want you to know that I would be the happiest man alive if you would be my wife. I’ll wait for you as long as you need to be certain, but if you give me your hand, I swear to you that I would cherish you every day of our lives.”

Fred sat, staring, open-mouthed.

“Um… so will you? Be my wife, I mean,” William added quickly.

Fred didn’t move for several long moments, and the shifting light of the fire seemed to cloud her expression. Her gaze was very far away. Then, slowly, she got to her feet and walked into the house.

William stood with a stunned expression on his face. Had his words been that horrible? Had he pressed to soon? Had he broken everything they had together with his impatience? An eternity seemed to pass, but in fact it was less than two minutes before Fred re-emerged through the door, clutching a sheaf of papers.

“These are my plans for different ways to go back to my own time,” she told him, her voice slightly strained.

“Of course,” William said, his heart already having fallen into his shoes. “I understand…”

But Fred moved to the fire and very deliberately added them to the kindling under the grill, watching them disappear in a puff of smoke.

“I love you, William,” she finally said as the last of the papers turned into ashes. “You’re the one who means home to me now. I’ll always love my family and my friends, but if it’s a choice between you and them, I choose to be with you.”

William’s eyes went back and forth between the grill and Fred several times as he tried to process what she was saying.

“That’s a yes, you silly man!” Fred said, realizing a translation was in order.

“Yes?” he asked. “You… you said yes?”

“Yeees,” Fred repeated, carefully enunciating the word.

“You… you said yes,” William repeated, absolutely beaming. “You said yes!”

With that, Fred found herself picked up in two incredibly strong arms and swung in a circle through the air.

“Did you hear that London!” William screamed at the top of his lungs. “We’re to be married! You hear me!”

“I heard you!” yelled the neighbor from the other side of the garden wall. “Now pipe down and kiss the girl!”

Fred and William exploded into fits of laughter at this, and the next thing Fred knew, she was being well and soundly kissed, with more passion than she had ever felt before. It left her completely breathless and weak in the knees, coming up for air only long enough to press their foreheads together and pant for a moment before they both decided that was entirely too much time and distance for one another and they resumed their kiss with renewed fervor.

Only the ribs nearly bursting into flame stopped them from practically passing out from lack of oxygen.

“My ribs!” Fred cried.

“I’m sorry, love,” William apologized. “Am I holding you too tightly?”

“What? No, not my ribs! Those ribs!” she said pointing to the smoking meat and just managing to spear them from the flames before it was too late.

Half-curled against each other, they carried the plate of ribs into the kitchen, smiling like they had both gone more than a little mad. Anne took one look at them and immediately laughed.

“And when have you set the date?” she asked.

Fred and William looked at one another and laughed loudly and long, the sort of laugh that warms the heart and soul for days and weeks, even years on end.


	6. Chapter 6

The wedding was held six weeks later, just shortly after the New Year. The morning dawned clear and crisp, and the heavens seemed to smile. Anne utterly refused to let William anywhere near Fred that morning, saying it was bad luck and that he must go to the site for the ceremony as soon as possible.

It was Anne’s wedding dress that Fred wore that day, a confection of white lace and silk that had been bought when the family’s finances were much different. She carried a nosegay of pink hothouse roses, and wreath of orange blossoms lay on top of the filmy white veil that covered her face.

“Now then, your dress is something old, and the flowers are something new. Here is something for you to borrow, child,” Anne said as she carefully pinned a lovely pearl brooch to the front of Fred’s gown. “William’s father gave this to me on my wedding day. Though I wish I could have been granted more time with him, our marriage was as happy as I had ever hoped it would be. I wish the same for you and my son, Fred.”

“You called me Fred,” she said, and oddly, it was this that started her crying. The older woman hugged her tenderly. “Thank you, Anne.”

“I always wanted a daughter,” she said, straightening Fred’s veil, “and now, at last I have one. I couldn’t be any happier.”

“Aw, you’re gonna make me cry so hard I float right away,” Fred said, sniffing heartily and then blowing her nose with a resounding trumpet blast in her handkerchief.

“Now, there’ll be no danger of that on my account,” Anne laughed. “Now there’s a sprig of forget-me-not in your bouquet, so something blue is taken care of. All that’s left is to put a haypenny in your shoe, and you should be quite ready.”

“I’m so nervous,” Fred breathed clutching her stomach. “I’m not going to faint, am I?”

“You’re not going to faint,” Anne said, gently leading her down the stairs and out to the carriage, which was being pulled by dear old Princess and Dodgy. “You have far too important an engagement to attend to faint.”

It took hardly a moment, it seemed, for the carriage to reach their destination. Fred and William had chosen to take their vows on the same little hill where Fred had originally been brought into his world. The vicar had found their choice of venue unusual, but he had agreed in good humor. The snow-covered ground was dotted with schoolchildren there to see the wedding of their two teachers, and Mrs. Gordon’s Ladies Aide Society, along with the grateful parents of the bride and groom’s young charges, were in attendance as well, making a merry party indeed.

The ceremony itself was like a dream to Fred. She remembered seeing William’s face being at her beside the vicar, repeating her vows and hearing William’s in return. It was William slipped the ring on her finger that she finally seemed to wake from dreaming, and found the waking better than any dream she had ever had.

What followed was a small party held in the Gordon home. Music rang out, and dancing and songs flowed from the small house out onto the street until it seemed that all of London, even all the world, must be celebrating on that day. The wedding cake was cut, the bouquet was tossed and caught by a pretty young girl nearly a woman, and at long last William and Fred boarded the carriage together, their small luggage bags stowed beside them, on their way to a weekend in a small cottage in the countryside.

“Hello, Husband,” Fred finally said once they were alone.

“And a very good evening to you, Wife,” William said with a wide smile.

As she watched the carriage retreat into the night, Anne let out a deep breath of relaxation.

“Well, now,” she thought, “I ought to have a grandchild by Christmas if all goes well.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Much later that night, as a party broke up in the more posh end of London, a group of three people wandered comfortably through the night.

“Well, if you’re lonely, Dru, why don’t you make a playmate,” said the tall, broad-shouldered man of the trio, who walked between two women, one an elegant blonde, the other a brunette.

“I could! I could pick the wisest and bravest knight in all the land and make him mine forever with a kiss,” she said with a note of excitement, then her eyes seemed to focus on something that didn’t exist in this world. “But he’s not here.”

“Who’s not here, Dru?” Darla asked impatiently.

“My knight,” Drusilla pouted. “It’s his wedding night, and I’m not the bride this go around. All his kisses are for her. Time’s tablecloth folded backward. It’s very confusing.”

Darla rolled her eyes and gave Angelus a you-sired-her-you-deal-with-her look.

“Love,” Angelus said, “what are you talking about?”

“I don’t… Daddy, who’s that?” Drusilla asked, pointing to a figure ahead of them.

“It can’t be!” Angelus called loudly. “Penn, my lad! I didn’t know you were in London!”

“In another hour I wasn’t going to be,” the man called, running towards the group and embracing Angelus. “I was just on my way to the docks. But… who is this?”

His eyes fell on Drusilla, who smiled back at him coquettishly.

“I’m Drusilla,” she said as he kissed her hand. “Daddy made me, too. Would you like to play?”

Penn looked at Angelus curiously, then back at Drusilla. “I do believe I would,” he said, grinning evilly.

So were born two long unions on that night.


	7. Chapter 7

“Angel, I’m telling you, there isn’t a sign of Fredikins anywhere in the building,” Lorne said quickly. “I’m starting to get really panicky here.”

“And Penn said he saw her just disappear in the middle of the lab,” Angel said, walking at a fast clip down the hallway.

“Exactamundo, commander in chief,” Lorne said. “Wes and Gunn are in there with him now, pouring over the room like… stuff that pours.”

“Could Penn have done something to her?” Angel asked.

“Negative,” Lorne said. “Until after the explosion, he still didn’t even have a body.”

“But he does now,” Angel said. “I never liked that guy.”

“He’s got a soul now, Angel. Lighten up on the boy,” Lorne said as they walked through the swinging doors of the laboratory. “He’s sung for me. He’s clean.”

“Angel, man, there’s nothing in here,” Gunn said, concern written on his features.

“I’m afraid I must concur,” Wesley said. “She’s simply… disappeared.”

“Penn?” Angel said, rounding on him. “What happened?”

“I already told them everything I know,” Penn said, leaning against a lab table. “One minute she was here, the next, giant explosion, she’s gone, and I’ve got a body back.”

“If you’re lying to me,” Angel growled at him.

“I’m not lying,” Penn snapped. “If I knew anything more, I’d tell you.”

At that moment, a knock came on the laboratory door.

"Excuse me? Certified letter delivery for a Mr. Angel Aurelius from a Mr. Fred Burkle,” said a timid-looking delivery girl.

The group all stared at each other, then Angel took a pen out of his coat pocket, signed for the letter, and looked at the envelope.

“This is dated 1885,” Angel said, opening it

“That’s not possible,” Wesley said in confusion.

“’Dear Angel’,” Angel read aloud. “It’s definitely her handwriting. ‘I know you’re probably all wondering where I’ve gone. I’m hoping this gets to you right after I left. It’s going to be difficult to explain this, but I wound up going back in time to 1879. I want you to know that I’m happy here. I’ve fallen in love with a man named William, and we’re married and very happy. This is where I want to spend the rest of my life. Please tell my mom and dad that I’m okay. Remember that I love all of you very much, Fred Burkle-Gordon’.”

Angel stared at the letter for a full minute before realizing that there was a photograph in the envelope as well. It showed Fred, dressed in a Victorian gown, standing beside a man with glasses and wavy hair. In front of them sat three small children. All five of them were beaming into the camera.

Wesley looked at the photograph, then walked to a computer in the lab and did a quick Internet search on the name Fred had given.

“It says here that Fred and William founded an entire set of schools throughout England, educating the children of the poor,” Wesley said. “They were responsible for teaching students who eventually went on to make several important discoveries in the sciences, including being responsible for many major vaccines. William and Fred had nine children together, and both lived to be over ninety years old.”

Angel stared at the picture for a good while longer, then sighed. “You know, I always had a bad feeling something terrible would have happened to her if she stayed around this place too long,” he said finally. “She’s happy. I’m glad.”

“Hey, don’t we have a Winifred Gordon working in one of the lab departments?” Gunn asked thoughtfully.

“Yes, I believe we do,” Wesley said, still dumbfounded. With a click, he brought her personnel records up on the computer. At once, they were greeted by a picture of smiling face that looked surprisingly like their Fred, except for the blue eyes and slightly roguish smile.

“Anyone else feel like getting really drunk and trying to figure this whole mess out?” asked Penn.

Gunn, Lorne, Wesley, and Angel all silently raised their hands and walked out of the room to take a solar-powered, non-polluting, affordably-priced car to the local bar.

 

“Okay, everybody,” Fred said, “smile big!”

“Cheese!” said Melinda, Peter, and Malcolm.

The flashbulb went off, capturing the perfect picture of their family to send to Wolfram & Hart over a hundred years from now. William wrapped his arms around his wife holding her close.

“Any regrets?” he whispered in her ear.

“Not even one,” she said and kissed him.

“Ew!” said Malcolm the oldest of the lot, but I do hope the reader will disagree.


End file.
